Lab News

Introducing the newest iteration of our miniature trawl simulator - MiniTrawl 3.0. Kudos to Davide Thambithurai, Jack Hollins, and Travis van Leuween for tweaking the design up until this point. This version includes a special rear compartment to shield captured fish from the oncoming flow, plus lower and upper escape areas in the trawl mouth. This photo shows a school of zebrafish swimming ahead of the trawl net. As they tire or turn they are captured in the net unless they are able to find an escape route. This setup is being used in our laboratory simulations of trawling to determine why some fish are more vulnerable to capture than others.